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Do not worry if you cannot go to a gym, run marathons, attend Yoga, adopt keto, dive into swimming, shun gluten and generally spend a fortune on fitness. All that you need to do to stay fine is eat sensibly and get up early enough to afford 15 minutes of simple exercises.
There's no point in going to a gym unless you hire a certified trainer. That doesn't come cheap. Most gyms are cramped, ill equipped and thrive as convenient avenues for peddling assorted 'health supplements' that are often substandard & do more harm than good with illogical use.
Post exercise deaths in otherwise fit persons in their 30s & 40s are on the rise. Sleep deprivation is a serious risk. Avoid wringing your lungs dry on a treadmill if you haven't had 7 hours sleep. Burning calories is fine, but not at the cost of driving your heart to exhaustion.
None of the gyms have defibrillators or guys trained in CPR. May sound outlandish, but there needs to be a law to mandate basic resuscitation measures in gyms. Also, most gyms are either in basements/higher floors frm where it's a formidable task to shift someone in an emergency.
And yet it is necessary to stay fit and keep your bones healthy. With excellent medical facilities around, most of you will live up to your 80s or 90s. And at that age, you have to preserve enough mobility and strength to perform activities of daily living without assistance.
Also, most gyms have no sense of hygiene and cleanliness. Gallons of sweat stewed in body odor breed microorganisms of all sorts of virulence, and those are conveniently circulated to every corner by the air-conditioning. You won't know because room fresheners subdue the stink.
So what are the essentials of healthy living? Quite simple & elementary. Eat three meals a day, the lightest at night. Cut down on sugary stuff. Quit smoking. Go for brisk morning/evening walks. 45-60 minutes if you can manage. Learn basic stretching from YouTube & do regularly.
Still have some time to spare? Choose a sport and play regularly. Badminton, Table Tennis, Volleyball, whatever. Or run with your dog. Playing competitive sports keeps you in shape, is an excellent aerobic exercise and it also floods you with endorphins that help bust stress.
There's nothing wrong in gym culture as such. Just remember that you are physiologically designed to be either a meso, ecto or an endomorph, and that each comes with its own limitations. Remember that the heart is a muscle too that should NEVER be driven to fatigue.
